


Home (and Country)

by scioscribe



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Comedy, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 04:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5233484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/pseuds/scioscribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oh, that,” M said, when Eve mentioned to him that every active MI6 agent seemed to have worked out a time-share arrangement for her house.  “They do that."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home (and Country)

“You smell like laundry soap,” Q said sleepily as Eve got back into bed. “And your feet are cold.”

“Bond’s doing his wash here again. The noise woke me up.”

Q rubbed his eyes. “Oh.”

“Get up if you want,” she said. She had never seen a load of clothes straight out of the dryer that Q hadn’t wanted to paw through like a cat. Actually, he did it a good deal more than the cats did. “And have a go at getting him to do ours, as well.”

“Didn’t you try?”

“I did, but he just pointed out that I shot him.”

“Well, that’s unnecessary,” Q said, tugging his bathrobe on. “You hardly meant to shoot him.”

 _If you ever get shot, we can discuss how enlightened you feel about it all,_ Eve almost said, but she burrowed her head deeper into the pillow in lieu of it. She had enough scars for both of them. One of the advantages of being with Q was his knowledge of the world was so different from hers that he made her feel there was more space to move around in than she’d known about before. They benefited from having certain areas where there was no overlap.

He belted the robe with an overly elaborate knot and leaned over and kissed her on the nose.

“I think I’ll promise him something that explodes.”

“Don’t take advantage,” Eve said. She closed her eyes again.

When the alarm went off, she woke to a basket’s worth of clean towels heaped on her. Q, chewing a piece of bacon, shrugged: “You were shivering.”

“I dreamt I was underneath a litter of puppies.”

“More like a litter of agents—003 came by too. Have you been giving people our address?”

“Well, no, but they _are_ spies.”

“True. 003 at least made breakfast before she left.” He flipped a towel off her bare foot and then stroked it idly with one finger, from arch to toe. “It’s because you’ve gone peaceable,” he said mournfully. “Now they think we’re a safe house and they can pick the locks whenever they like and just avail themselves of the furniture. Other amenities. I think Bond drank the last Irn Bru.”

“Considering you bought it for him, I don’t know why you mind.”

“A person likes to make a proper offer,” Q said. He touched her foot again, and then let his fingers trail up her ankle. “Case in point—you’re shivering again, Miss Moneypenny. Would you like me to warm you up a little?”

“Very much so, but I don’t know that we have time.”

“I enjoy the pressure of the clock.”

“And no one else is here?”

“I ushered the last of them out with a broom.”

Eve considered the clock, the towels, and Q’s mouth. “That _is_ a proper offer,” she said. “I think I’ll be pleased to accept.”

Q smiled. “Indeed you shall be.”

“Smug,” she said, until he made her dig her heels into the covers and knock two of the towels off the bed.

*

“Oh, that,” M said, when Eve mentioned to him that every active MI6 agent seemed to have worked out a time-share arrangement for her house. “They do that. Someone even earned their DProf once with a study of it, apparently—you can read it if you like, it’s in one of the massive files I inherited along with the desk.”

“But they don’t do it to you?”

“No, thank God.”

“Then why read a dissertation on it?”

“Because I saw the title and quailed with fear that they might. Evidently they’ve chosen you instead. Congratulations—apparently, it’s a considerable marker of trust. You represent home and country to them.”

“But I don’t want to represent home and country to them.”

“Then tell them to leave. They’re all adults.”

“With flocking patterns that can be mapped like geese.”

“I don’t want to make too much of a point of this,” M said, “but didn’t your relationship start while you were still in the field?”

Eve opened her mouth and then shut it.

Then opened it again. “Well, damn it all to fuck,” she said.

“Save that attitude for our next meeting with the Securities Council. Coffee?”

“We don’t have anything stronger?”

*

“Do you remember when I used to come over after assignments and make toast in your kitchen?”

Q looked as though he thought it was a trick question. “Yes. You also used to steal my slippers. I only moved in with you so you’d stop accidentally leaving in them. Also, and I’ve been meaning to bring this up, you once used my credit card to order series DVDs of _The Avengers_.”

“I think I might have done to you what they’re doing to us.” She rested her hand on his shoulder. “I made you my landing place.”

“All right,” he said, baffled. “Does that matter?”

Eve looked at him. He was wearing a violet cardigan and his fingertips smelled like cordite; he made excellent waffles and stocked their home with Scottish sodas for Bond; she had photographic evidence that he had once coaxed Marmalade and Peel into wearing tiny party hats. He did not, particularly, represent England to her—she was too cynical for that—but he did represent home. And she distinctly remembered the way it had felt to stand in his slippers in his kitchen. It had been a good feeling, and even a necessary one, but she preferred standing in his slippers in _their_ kitchen.

It wasn’t as though they knew anyone psychologically sound anyway.

“No,” she said, giving up on it. “Not particularly. Though I think it means I’d be a hypocrite to boot them out.”

“I’m actually getting used to it,” Q admitted. “Also, if you glare at them, they’ll spontaneously perform household chores for you. It’s like a magic trick. I think Bond vacuumed last Saturday.”

“Are you planning on letting him know at any point that he’s got Marmalade’s fur all down the back of half of his suits?”

“If it comes up,” Q said.

“How very unprofessionally diabolical of you,” Eve said.

*

It got so that their fridge had a dry-erase board permanently stuck to it.

“I BOUGHT MORE JAFFA CAKES – 008”

(“I hate it when he writes in all caps like that,” Q said. “It’s like being shouted at when I still have morning head. And it isn’t Jaffa Cakes we were out of anyway, it was orange juice.”)

“Called plumber, will tip, thx – 003.”

“Shot – JB.”

“You can’t just write ‘shot’ on the fridge board,” Eve said, examining Bond’s crooked row of self-inflicted stitches. “You have to actually wake one of us up or, better still, phone for an ambulance. You were just trying to show up Marianne for being trivial enough to put on there that Q had bought the wrong flavor of Weetabix. As though there were a _right_ flavor.”

“There is,” Q said, “and it’s Alpen. Which I bought, so she’s either confused or wrong.” He was sitting on the coffee table, still a little white-faced about it all. He wasn’t very good with blood but had evidently determined that it was part of his duty as a host to cooperate with it.

“Do you know,” Bond said casually, “I think I could do with another Irn Bru, if you’ve got one.”

“Right,” Q said, scrambling up gratefully. “One mo. Not stocked at the moment, but I can run ‘round the corner.”

“That was more delicately handled than I would have expected from you,” Eve said once Q had gone. She took up her needle. “Do you want me to finish this or let you do it and just bear witness to the sheer masculine bravery of it all?”

Bond accepted help, Q returned with Irn Bru, the cats rubbed against Bond’s trousers, and Eve felt oddly content with her life.

*

By virtue of some extraordinary whisper campaign, they actually did have their anniversary to themselves, and they made the most of it. Eve enjoyed having the chance to be loud once again—she’d barely had an orgasm in a year and a half that hadn’t been accompanied by her needing to bite down on one hand in case someone heard—and afterwards, they defrosted a chocolate cheesecake (whoever said romance was impossible for people in their line of work?) and ate it in bed.

Q was almost finished with his second slice when he said, “Do you want something?”

“I already had two somethings,” Eve said. “I don’t know that I’m up for more.”

“I can’t tell if you mean the cheesecake or sex.”

“Either. Both.”

“No, I mean this,” he said, and he rolled off the bed and dug around in the pockets of his discarded trousers until he came up with a small black velvet box. He popped it open with his thumb. “Moissanite. I grew it in the lab. It’s very sparkly, if that’s an incentive to you.” He moved it in the lamplight and it threw off little rainbows.

“Very sparkly,” Eve agreed. “I believe you’re actually supposed to ask me to marry you, not just ask if I’d like a ring you made.”

“They could be separate things. You could like the ring but not the prospect of marrying me. I was going to follow one with the other, but either way, you can have the ring.”

“You’re going about this ridiculously. I don’t care about the ring.”

“You should,” he said, sounding slightly miffed. “I put a good deal of work into it. But fine. Would you marry me? Together we can raise a whole family of double-oh agents of our very own.”

Eve laughed. “I can’t tell if they’re drawn to you or to me or both.” She kissed him. “Let’s spend the rest of our lives not knowing that.”

*

Scrawled on the whiteboard over the course of the next week:

“Proposal: Q asked E or E asked Q?”

“Oh, E asked Q, definitely.”

(“What is _that_ supposed to mean?” Q demanded. "And did you notice they weren't even brave enough to sign it?")

And, most ominously of all, “Where honeymoon?”


End file.
